During the last week of September, Dean Thomas Galloway and the College of Architecture hosted the semi-annual board and committee meetings of the International Council for Research and Innovation in Building Construction (CIB). Founded in 1953, CIB is a worldwide network of building and construction experts who improve their day-to-day performance through international cooperation and information exchange with their peers.

"With over 20 countries and five continents represented, the CIB Board Meeting and related workshops provided the College with an excellent opportunity to bring the world to Georgia Tech and showcase the College's facilities, resources, and people," said Galloway.

Following the board meetings, the College organized the Integrated Design Solutions (IDS) Workshop in the Ferst Room of the Georgia Tech Library. Deans and directors of design schools from around the country and experts in the design and construction industries from around the world participated in the workshop, which sought to define IDS as a proactive theme of the CIB. The CIB is currently exploring IDS to complement and unite the three existing themes - Sustainable Construction, Performance Based Building, and Revaluing Construction - and to strengthen links to the CIB working commissions and task groups. CIB Board Member Peter Barrett, representing the United Kingdom's University of Salford Research Centre for the Built and Human Environment and the chair of the CIB Program Committee, defined IDS as "the activity of bringing together the ideas, technologies, and people necessary to elegantly solve the challenges of particular projects" within building and construction. 

Georgia Tech's recently appointed Provost Dr. Gary B. Schuster gave the welcome and discussed how Georgia Tech's College of Architecture interprets IDS through its integration of architecture, engineering, and construction in undergraduate and graduate curricula, specifically through its Common First Year Program; the College's research in building information modeling (BIM) and interoperability; and its research and application of digital manufacturing and fabrication through computer-numeric-control (CNC) machines and parametric modeling. There also were presentations on IDS and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the role of technologies in design and construction, and sustainability in construction. College of Architecture Professors Fried Augenbroe and Chuck Eastman made presentations on their work related to AEC integration. 

The workshop ended with a panel discussion with the invited architecture deans and directors. Moderated by Dean Galloway, this discussion focused on design education, IDS, and globalization. Auburn University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Texas A&M, University of Maryland, University of Minnesota, University of Pennsylvania, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and the University of Utah were represented at the workshop.

According to Wim Bakens, Secretarial General, "broad integration of the construction and design industries is not to far away and educational institutes will have a decisive role too play."

The last event of the week was a joint symposium on tall buildings and fire organized by Mr. Richard Bukowski, coordinator of the CIB working commission on fire and Dr. Faridah Shafii, coordinator of the tall buildings CIB task group. Mr. Bukowski works for the National Institute of Standards & Technology in Maryland. Dr. Shafii is a CIB board member and on the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the University of Technology Malaysia.